Even though serious doubts were raised about the Tour de France participation of two of the three Astana riders involved in a high speed crash in Tenerife during the weekend, both Andrei Grivko and Assan Bazayev still have a fair chance of taking part in the second grand tour of the season.

After being taken to hospital on Sunday, the duo underwent additional medical examinations on Monday and both were told that things were slightly less serious than initially feared.

“Bazayev begged me not to take him off the Tour de France preliminary selection. If you look at him you automatically think there is no way he could do the race,” said directeur sportif Dmitriy Sedoun. “Unfortunately that’s because he absorbed most of the crash with his face. There is a 4-5cm scrape on his chin, another one on his nose, and the whole side of his body is road rash as well. But he got up and went to train again today,” Sedoun explained on the Astana website.

With regards to Grivko, a fracture has been confirmed but things are not as stern as they could have been.

“Grivko for sure has a broken scaphoid bone in his wrist, but it is broken in place, and with a cast he can resume riding immediately,” Sedoun confirmed. “So he will go home and defend his road race and time trial national championship jerseys in Ukraine. He also asked to remain on the Tour pre-selection list, but it could happen that in a week or so the pain becomes too much or there are complications and then it becomes impossible to ride. It's a big unknown.”

As a consequence, the announcement of the team’s Tour de France line-up will be postponed for several days. Luckily, the team’s designated leader for the Tour de France looks set to ride the race. Jakob Fuglsang is bruised and sore, but things are not more serious than that.

“We were only thirty minutes into the training ride when it happened,” said the Danish rider, who fell after the other two hit the deck first. “We were going about fifty kilometres per hour and I couldn't avoid the crash, but I was luckier than the other two.

“I am sore all over, but I feel ok to train and am still very motivated to continue. I will for sure start the Danish National Championship road race this weekend, that's fully booked and I will be ready. But just the road race, I won't do the time trial.”

He was recently second on a stage and fourth overall in the Critérium du Dauphiné, and is aiming for a top spot in the Tour de France GC.